Buried beneath the flow
by blackpearlbreathe
Summary: "Crying — it was only another worthless display of emotions, if those drops of water couldn't heal her" (after the war, Katara starts to learn that "peace" means winning not only the fight against the world, but against herself too).


_first:_

Hello, darlings! This is my first A:TLA fanfiction and I'll tell you right away: one, Zutara will be end game; two, I have no idea where I want this to go, but I just felt the urge to write something for them, so bear with me!; three, english is not my first language, so if you could only forgive me for my grammar mistakes - end even tell me about them, please and thank you! - and tell me how I'm doing that'd be very nice; four: it's nice to know all of you and I hope I can entertain you all a little bit.

If only I could suggest a song for this start that'd be "Long road" by Pearl Jam.

_second:_

Some subtitles:

"**saying**" — "_thinking_".

_third:_

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to A:TLA, sadly.

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"**Buried beneath the flow**"

by

~_blackpearlbreathe_.

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Pain.

Pain.

Hurting endlessly each and every time she breathes, and pain – but, oh, not painful enough! Not enough for her to die, anyway. Although sometimes she wishes she could, even if she can't – of what was everything, she still didn't know, but her misery was her own, and she would never be selfish sufficiently to destroy other's mind stability only for the sake of her own. Only for her to know that she was not the only one who whished for an end: not the only one to know true wretchedness, nevertheless.

She was once called "hopeful" and that much was true – that much is true, at least in her past. In the present, however, she knew not what was tenderness anymore, as Destiny seemed to mock her ways every once in a while and show her how fragile it was the maturity she oh-so claimed to have. The slightest she could do now was pay the honors to her old-self, by not ruining what still could be, even if not for her, but for others.

He deserved to be happy with someone whole, and she wasn't – but she would find out soon enough. Without him.

"**I'm sorry, Aang**", she said with sadness in her voice, but no tears in her eyes, when she realized he woke up. She had already cried enough during the past days only to find out that it could change nothing, so it was only another worthless display of emotions, if those drops of water couldn't heal her.

Aang didn't blink after he saw her, but not because it was late at night or because he was still a bit sleepy. Aang didn't blink because of what it looked like: packed, clean and ready to go – go?! Where, she didn't tell him, but he expected her to.

More then that he expected her to have his belongings in those bags too, for if he couldn't have a say to the destination – in which he was strangely fine with – he would still be with her.

He would still have Katara.

He tried to ignore the great feeling of loneliness that he could sense coming through the very door she was meaning to leave, mentally telling himself that she was leaving to do something – anything! – that would make her come back eventually. Like going out to look for something because she heard some strange noise, or any other futile reason that could never break his heart, like he was feeling it would happen somehow.

Or maybe – just maybe – he did see it coming somewhere along the way, but he too choose to ignore, just like he was trying right now. He was the Avatar, after all, and not maybe he firmly believed that after all he's done Destiny would always find a way to keep him happy despite circumstances. Because he – and only he himself – deserved it first.

But Aang was wrong.

… So very wrong, at least about Destiny in a way – it would always make justice to every object that exists, and not more or less to anything. But the thing about it – and that was usually ignored too – is that Destiny has its traditions to work that regularly don't agree with those of humans – foolish and egocentric little humans! – and theirs ways of trying to control everything.

...

...

...

_A human can't control a being bigger then themselves. _

_A human can't decide which way to go: a human is born with nothing and he has to learn, so he can't be his own teacher – or, at least, not at first. _

_A human will always have what he deserves, but not in the way he'd like – and in some state of affairs, in a way he'd like to run away from – but in the way that would make the world he'd live in better – and that is when Destiny always laugh! A human may be born with nothing, but if there's something that they seem to learn on their own very quickly is stubbornness, so most of the times they have to learn "the had way". It was not a problem for Destiny, because the hard way seemed to be – within Its long years of experience – the way in which they'd take the better lessons, the way it took longer for them to forget._

_Surely Destiny couldn't interfere in one's freewill, but every once in a while It would present people with situations for them to get where It would like them to, based in an "ideal-type" of reaction It hoped they'd have, even if sometimes reality didn't seem to marry Its expectations. So again and again It'd have to create those kind of situation – commonly named by humans as the "crossroads of destiny" – to help define one character and one's purpose in life._

_..._

_..._

_..._

Sometime ago, Aang would have freaked out and snapped at Katara, but almost three years after the end of the war he changed – or, a least, he was trying to. The urge to shatter and make her stay – "you're mine, Katara, mine!", he could hear his inner voice screaming – was cunning but he'd try to hold on as best as he could. He understood that because he was younger it was expected that he would be the one to be immature – and he usually was regardless ever since Katara could take it, and Aang didn't like changing – but something deep within him was also saying that if he could have a shoot at this, screaming would do no good.

"**Why are you leaving?**" was the only thing he said, and he thought it would make her swallow hard, the way he tried to say it so acutely, but there was nothing.

… And, at that realization, his heart broke a little – "**she is not so sorry, after all**", he thought to himself almost offended, and sighed.

"**It doesn't feel right to stay**" – she, too, knew how to be insensible.

"**What do you mean "It doesn't feel right to stay"?!**", and not so slowly he was losing it: he had jumped from the bed and was now walking in her direction, annoyance claiming control over the glow in his eyes, but she was still.

"**I don't belong within these walls anymore**", she said – "_LIAR!_", Aang silently accused her in his mind, "_You don't belong with me anymore, that's what you mean, isn't it?!_", he thought too.

"**You don't belong here, Katara?! What kind of answer is that?!"**, he hissed, **"Yesterday it was all fine, what has been altered?!**" his voice was louder, and deep down Katara cursed the fact that along all the nights Aang could have had an fragile sleep, he had to pick today indeed! "**How could you have changed so much in one night?! And how come I don't have a say in it?!**" – "_LIAR!_", Katara silently accused him in her mind, "_Don't tell me you were not seeing it! Don't tell me you didn't feel it, and that you didn't choose not to do a thing!_", she thought too.

…

And then silence.

Just pure and simple silence, and tears – not Katara's through, but Aang's.

What else could there be? That's what they'd become: liars, pretenders.

She pretended she didn't feel it, and Aang lied to himself saying he didn't see it.

How could Katara explain it all?! How could she make him understand her now if he hadn't tried to do all along?!

… But, in the end, that was pretty much how things always were: unclean, unsolved, alone.

That was why it was hurting, by the way.

Ever since she was very young, Katara was forced into cautiousness: and the cost of good wisdom very early in life because of death, and war, and sacrifice – the cost of being a sister, a mother, a house-keeper and a symbol of hope – was not being Katara at all.

Don't get her wrong, she knew what it was to feel loved and feel happiness, but as the days went by – principally after the reborn of the Southern Water Tribe was complete – she started to wonder what was that that she would like to do and who she would like to become, after being so many things by circumstances' force, and at that thoughts she broke. _Wholeheartedly_.

She broke, because she realized that she was almost always not the "Katara she wanted", but the "Katara that was needed", even if yet now she didn't know exactly what she sought to be, just that she needed something – anything! – that she could call her own.

She was proud to be all those things, and a world-wide known hero nonetheless, but despite the fact that she had always wished to do good, she started to question herself about how was her manner to do it, and not what was required: was the world a better place if she kept on following Aang all around? Was still her job to keep the world at peace – always changing and travelling – that way, or was that what Aang wanted her to do?!

She was already what her brother and her father need, that was true, but they didn't need her in that depth anymore – but what about him?!

Was she glad when she lived up to everybody's expectation? Yes.

Was she glad for loving him and being loved in return? Yes.

Was she glad for the days and experience they shared? Yes.

Would there be a day he wouldn't need her?! A day he wouldn't try to control her? Maybe, but probably not.

Was she still the same Katara of the old days? No.

Was she even a Katara – living like this, in his shadow, as he wished – she was proud of? No.

Was that still enough to make her glad now? No.

Was his love for her, after all and alone, enough when she didn't even love herself? No.

No.

"**No**" she answered quickly and Aang was not sure she was talking to him or to herself – he whished it was to herself, other than that he would have to start begging… He would start… He would… "**No what, Katara?**", his voice was trembling as well as his body.

"**No, it doesn't matter if something else has changed or not: the important thing is – I changed**", she said trying not to look any other way if not where Aang was – she wanted him to realize that this was serious and that there was no coming back – or being the same. Not anymore.

"**Katara, you can't – you won't – you don't know what you're doing, this is… Of all people, don't you understand that what we have – it is "forever", remember?! Avatar's love is forever!**", he hissed without even breathing – as if, if there was a way to say things fast enough, maybe they'd reach her reasoning before she fully left, and even stop her. "**This is a mistake, can't you see it?!**".

And – at that – she snapped: of course she could see it!

She could see "forever" being some kind of prison – some kind of notion that once you'd got, you could never get away from – never change, if it meant growing out of it! Some kind of notion that she could never have a say at it, and that because "forever" was what the whole world would like to have, she couldn't just let it go!

But the funny fact was that she was not "the whole world": she was Katara, and she was a mother at day and a bloodbender at moon, and she was hope and love, but sometimes she could hear herself whispering words of abhorrence and melancholy. And so unlikely most of the other girls her age she did know that forever would never last: the best you could do was to live a day at a time, because things that would make us feel infinity – a true friend, a place to call home, a mother's laugh – they could die longer before you were even old enough to know what forever should look like.

In her cause, they could – and they did.

"**Well, we can't know for sure it's a mistake – last time I checked bending the future was not an Avatar's ability!**", she was screaming – she knew – and that would only make things worse, but that would maybe free her too. "**So, even if it's a mistake… It's my life, my way to live – my way to do right or wrong! I've been living according to your expectations long enough – I've been following you for the past tree years! It feels like "forever" without a doubt, and I'm seek of it!**". A voice in the back of her mind was screaming about how discourteous she was being and that is was not a Katara-like behavior at all: a memory, right away, more alive than any sound she could even hear at the moment just slapped her – hard, and maybe that was a Katara she too was all along.

And than she was again in the middle of war and she felt unaided, and sad and there was this hollow in her history that would never be fully filled – even if they won, even if it all came to an end – that was eating her alive.

Katara woke up screaming on Appas' back in their way to the place where they were certain they would finally find Yon Rha, and the nightmare she just had – or was that the reflection of a dream she dreamed for so long, her revenge? – was making her hot still even if she was not sleeping anymore. Zuko was taken aback by the highness of her shout while having trouble controlling a-now-unstill-Appa and screaming back at her, asking what happened and trying to ignore the urge of letting go of controlling that animal and going to her like the friend he was trying to become.

She took some instants to realize she wasn't dreaming any longer – of course not: her hands weren't stained with red and there wasn't a dead man in her sight – and when Katara realized, now so close to her destination, just how much she despised that man… She felt something burning so blistering with an ache so utterly suffocating that her face didn't know how to express the turmoil she was in if not by a completely empty – the result of everything and nothing at the same time – expression and the tears that were falling.

When Zuko screamed again – now with his head to her direction, looking at her from afar with that frown in his face that was telling her he was about to go there and slap her back to reality – to ask what was wrong, she simply stare at him like he was – more than ever – the face of her enemy: she knew it was not his flames burning her, but her own hatred, and she didn't care.

She didn't care, because he should have known what he signed up for when he offered her a situation where monsters were allowed in, not even caring to wipe away the tears. The worry at Zuko's face disappeared and a moment before he groaned with frustration breathing fire off of his mouth to come back minding his own business while riding Appa, she was almost sure she saw recognition glowing in his eyes.

Katara now couldn't ignore the fact that she was hope, but could be hate too – and that, for the first time since forever, maybe her hate wasn't integrally for him anymore or ever. She wanted to thank him for trying to reach her, but being sensible enough as to perceive she needed to go trough that by herself at the moment, but she didn't: something also told her Zuko could understand her inability of showing any emotion that wasn't disgust for herself – much less gratitude – despite his attempt gentleness... So she just tried to go back to sleep anyway.

… And almost smiling at that, at last: maybe dead mothers weren't the only thing they could relate with each other after all.

"**Katara, I could – we could make this work! If you want to go back to the South Pole I'm sure I can make arrangements to stop for a while and**" – "**I can't promise I just want "a while", Aang – I can't promise you it – or anything else I'm familiar now – can be enough**", she said before he could properly finish it. "**I can't promise because I don't know – you had your time to discover yourself, now I need mine**".

"**I know you can make mistakes and I never asked you to be perfect, Katara**", he said as if he completely ignored the rest of her explanation – that made her a bit pissed, but at the same time that was always the same: she couldn't ask Aang to be more than just Aang the way he knew, the same way she wished he could understand he can't ask her to be any other Katara than the Katara she was – both good and bad – the Katara she wanted to become, her own person. "**I only ever wished I was the one you loved**".

And, yes, she lov_ed_ him indeed.

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... TBC!

(Thank you again for reading it all! And for leaving a review - I hope you did, at least, AHAHA)


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